Describe a moment and analyze: “Write about a single experience or moment, and ask: how does this moment, experience, or encounter relate to my essential question?” You can also compare it with learning experiences you have had elsewhere, whether in or out of a classroom, at LREI, or elsewhere.

Current Essential Question: How can I use my knowledge of American civics/politics/law to inspire others to think more critically about current events?

What exactly is gerrymandering? This is a question that I have heard many times. From classmates. From my parents. From YouTube commenters confused at the seemingly undemocratic nature of U.S. politics. 

I often wondered the same thing before these last few days of research. But even after my roughly eight hours of research, I don’t think I fully understood the extent of the topic until my dad and I became expert gerrymander-ers.

In my research, I had found an activity from Cambridge University designed to teach gerrymandering in a hands-on way. It included a square-shaped “state” made up of 64 smaller squares, with each representing an equal number of Democratic or Republican voters. Our job was to divide the state into eight congressional districts with eight voters each.

From there, my dad and I gave ourselves an objective (eg. give as many congressional seats as possible to Republicans) and gerrymandered the state accordingly. 

We started by doing some math: the state contained 30 Republican squares and 34 Democratic squares. If each district would have eight voters, then the lowest number of voters a party needed to win the seat was 5. And because 30 divided by five equals six, the most number of Republican seats was six, assuming each candidate wins five to three. This would leave 16 extraneous Democratic voters to take up the remaining two districts.

We then employed the strategies of “packing” (shoving as many opposition voters into a few districts to dilute the power of opposition voters elsewhere) and “cracking” (drawing a border to slit up a powerful opposition voting bloc). After a lot of tinkering and starting over, we came up with this map:

Afterward, my mother walked in, not knowing what we were doing, and said, “look how cool, it’s so red!” I immediately thought, “no, not cool! We just disenfranchised a quarter of the state!” It was only after I had done it myself that I realized the truly destructive potential of gerrymandering. 

Last week, I wrote about the “how” of my essential question—that my project is as much about my presentation methods as it is about the actual content. I think Cambridge’s activity is a prime example of that “how” done correctly. It forces students to confront the feeling of having an immense amount of political power, and that’s not something any Powerpoint presentation or research assignment can capture.